Industry News

May 19, 2012 The Age As consumers increasingly consult their smartphones during their shopping trips, the old ways of doing business are facing irrelevancy. ON DECEMBER 10 the world’s biggest online retailer, Amazon, sent chills down the spines of traditional retailers when it called on its army of millions of customers to take to the shops with their smartphones and use the Amazon barcode scanner application to scan the prices on any three toys, electronics, sporting goods or music. The prize? Five per cent off the price of each Amazon product in return for each bar scan. The endgame is to build a lethal database of price comparisons to wage against their competitors in the dog-eat-dog fight for the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on retail each year. Apps such as Amazon’s Price Check have been dubbed killer mobile apps because they empower customers to get real-time pricing information…

David & Libby Koch News Limited newspapers May 21, 2012 IT SEEMS with every trip to the supermarket the bill gets bigger. It’s a struggle to go pick up the essentials and be left with much change from a fifty these days. Grocery shopping is an expensive exercise and unfortunately it’s not about to get any cheaper. We’ve been enjoying falling prices for some items as a line of products rebound from last year’s floods and cyclones. But that’s about to change, with the Federal Budget forecasting a rise in the Consumer Price Index next financial year. So what can you do to cut your food bill? Over the years we’ve tried and tested several strategies and found these eight tips to be winners. 1. Be conscious of location of items If you’re not already, look at where the market-leading products are placed on the shelves – usually at eye…

May 21, 2012 Another electronics retailer has succumbed to a slowdown in consumer spending and a shift to online shopping with Retravision Southern being placed into voluntary administration this morning. The retailer’s demise is the latest blow for the sector which has been under increasing pressure and has seen a string of profit drops and store closures in recent months. The traditional retailing business model has been challenged by consumers’ embrace of online – rather than store-based – purchasing, with the strong dollar accelerating the trend. Bryan Webster and Leanne Chesser of KordaMentha have been appointed as administrators of the company which supplies products and support to 104 privately owned franchises in Victoria, Tasmania and southern New South Wales. “The company’s ability to operate as a going concern had been impacted by the industry wide decrease in consumer discretionary spending being experienced by retailers,” said Mr Webster in a statement…

John Masanauskas Herald Sun May 15, 2012 REVEALED: FAST food giants such as McDonald’s and KFC face big fat rate increases in a new attack on the obesity crisis. A Melbourne council will consider hitting major fast food outlets up to 400 per cent more on their rates in a move backed by dieticians and health groups. Darebin Council’s move could be followed by other councils concerned about the spread of junk food chains despite warnings about illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease. Darebin councillor Gaetano Greco said council was investigating a rate slug to discourage and penalise major food outlets. “Councils have the responsibility of looking after the health and wellbeing of their community,” he said yesterday. “Here we are, looking at an extra tool that council can use to limit or control the spread of fast-food chain outlets,” Mr Greco said. Councillors voted to explore the option…

Cameron England http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/ May 14, 2012 THE debate about peak oil is over and the world has used just a fraction of the petroleum it will be possible to extract, an expert believes. Speaking at the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) 2012 conference in Adelaide, oil major Total’s chief executive Christophe de Margerie said new sources of petroleum, such as tight gas and shale oil, meant that the world had ample supplies of petroleum. Mr de Margerie said while there were economic and environmental issues which would affect how quickly resources were exploited, there was “definitely not a concern about reserves”. His comments were echoed by Saudi Arabia’s Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Ali I. Naimi, who told the conference new technology would continue to drive the petroleum sector. “It is estimated that the world has consumed something like one trillion barrels of oil since the industry started…

Clancy Yeates May 15, 2012 The Age AN INQUIRY into price signalling by petrol stations has reignited criticism of the government’s move to ban the practice only in the banking industry. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission this month launched a probe into price sharing among petrol stations through a data aggregation website called Informed Sources. The investigation will assess whether petrol stations are contravening laws that prohibit companies from agreeing to exchange information in a way that lessens competition. However, the watchdog cannot pursue the case under upcoming laws banning ”price signalling” – where companies communicate their plans to rivals. The laws, which come into force in July, will apply only to banks. A former ACCC commissioner who now works at Monash University, Stephen King, said the watchdog’s task would have been much easier if the government had followed the ACCC’s advice and implemented a price-signalling ban throughout the…